Original Tijuana Caesar Dressing

Caesar salad is from Baja California. Tijuana, specifically. Hotel Caesar's, on Avenida Revolucion, on the Fourth of July weekend in 1924, when the kitchen ran short and Caesar Cardini built a salad tableside from what was left in the pantry. That is not a folk story. That is documented history, and it belongs to Mexico whether the rest of the world remembers it or not.

The original dressing has no anchovies in it. None. Cardini draped oil-cured anchovy fillets across the romaine as a garnish, but the dressing itself is garlic, coddled egg, Mexican lime, Worcestershire, olive oil, Parmigiano, black pepper. The Worcestershire carries the savory note. The lime, not lemon, is what Cardini had on the Baja side of the border, and it gives the dressing a brightness that lemon cannot match. The anchovy paste version most Americans grew up with came later, when restaurant cooks decided the original tasted too subtle for export. They were wrong, but the misconception stuck.

I have stood in the bar at Caesar's where the salad is still made tableside on a wheeled cart, the captain pressing the garlic against the wooden bowl, coddling the egg in front of you, building the emulsion by hand. It is theater, but it is also technique, and the technique is what makes the dressing work. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and Baja California gave the world a salad it has been mistranslating ever since. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.